The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 202: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

CHAPTER XIV THE TWINS At the same time that Mr. Redcliffe thus arrived at his new lodging, the occupants of the second floor, to whom Mrs. Macaulay had alluded, were seated together at a table, on which were books and needlework. The room was tol- erably well furnished for a second floor, and was at least quite comfortable. The two inmates were a brother and a sister, and even a superficial observer would have seen that they were twins. We need not enter into any lengthy description of the sister, inasmuch as we have already de- scribed her, for she was none other than that same Christina Ashton on whose account Lord Octavian Meredith fought a duel. We may however remind the reader that she ap- peared to be between sixteen and seventeen years of age, and that she was exquisitely beautiful. Christina’s brother was an exceedingly prepossessing youth; he had large dark eyes, similar to those of his sister, and though perhaps his hair was not of the same intense darkness, it nevertheless had an almost equally fine natural gloss upon it. Like herself, he possessed a superb set of teeth, and his countenance was pale, not with a sickly pallor, but with that absence of a florid hue which is usually characteristic of youthful faces when set off by dark hair and eyes. Christina’s figure had as yet all the slenderness and willowy elasticity of her tender youthfulness, — at the same time promising to expand, as she approached more nearly to womanhood, into rich developments. The bust had already its nascent contours, carefully concealed by the modest apparel which ascended to the very throat, — and that throat, how sweetly beautiful, how transparently white! The youth’s figure was likewise slender, symmetric- 175 EORNIClOOKS (EO)